Forsaken by the Light
by Golden Moon Huntress
Summary: Hell must be empty, for all of the demons are walking the Earth.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note**

I do not own The Gifted.

This is my latest one! It's not long, six chapters and an epilogue, but I caught the plot bunny for it.

* * *

Esme Frost was born hungry.

She opened their bright eyes to the world and screamed when she had to wait.

"We'll have to beat that out of her," the scientists said.

But they also said if you gazed into those hungry eyes for too long then you would feel the hunger too, until you were willing to gnaw your own arm off rather than wait another second for food.

* * *

Clarice Fong's mother died the night of her birth.

It would become a theme.

Things rotted around her.

Plants withered at her touch.

Grass died under her feet.

People sickened if they were near her too long.

"Freak," people called her.

But they also said the air around her was tainted, that people fell ill and died if she wished it.

* * *

The moon was red the night Rebecca Hoover was born.

Fights started when she's around.

She laughed when blood is spilt.

"Sociopathic," people called her.

But they also said her presence was all that was needed to split friends, lovers, siblings, tear families in half.

* * *

Lauren Strucker was born quiet.

"She's not all there," people said about her.

She never cried, never made a sound, only watched the world with those pale eyes.

Her parents worried and cried, took her to specialists, all for nought.

"Mute," the doctors would say, though there was nothing wrong with her physically.

She wouldn't make a single sound until her brother was born two years later.

"Better," she said.

They were one spirit across two bodies, inseparable, inconsolable when they were apart.

They craved togetherness.

"Separation anxiety," the doctors said.

But people also said things died around them, that they saw things in the dark.


	2. Chapter One

**Author's Note**

I do not own The Gifted.

Shoutout and thank you to Saddam Boudiar for the favourite/follow!

* * *

Lauren and Andy Strucker were always quiet children.

They always knew, though they knew more as they grew, bits and pieces slotting into place like a jigsaw.

They were here for a reason.

* * *

They always felt the pull. For the sake of fitting in they had to ignore it, stay apart sometimes, sit through meaningless lessons and lectures, suffer through hours and hours when she wasn't with him and he wasn't with her and they weren't _right_ like they should be.

"Do you think we're mutants?" Andy asked when they were old enough to understand what that meant.

"I don't know," Lauren replied, but her hand fitted nicely in his and they rarely needed words to communicate.

* * *

Something _clicked_ as the truck barrelled towards them. Lauren _reached_ and batted it away, child's play. It spun across the highway in what seemed like slow motion, tumbling onto its side and flipping over the barricade.

Their mom slammed on the breaks.

Andy looked at her.

They smiled.

By the time they reached the truck the driver was already dead.

Broken neck.

"It's a miracle you weren't killed too," their dad said that night as he held their mom close. Lauren lounged back against Andy and watched the nature documentary playing in the background.

* * *

Lauren would be silent for nearly a year after the incident. The doctors said the shock could have reverted her to how she was as a toddler.

Andy didn't speak much either.

Instead Lauren trained her powers and Andy tried to trigger his, to no avail.

"This is so frustrating," he grumbled as she sliced an orange in half with one of her blades. Maybe he was just too young, or maybe they needed to throw him in front of a car. She smiled and petted his arm.

He picked up running and boxing instead.

* * *

It would be three years after the incident when Andy's powers finally manifested.

He and Lauren were virtual outcasts at school, preferring their own company and having little time or patience for normal teenagers and their dramatic drama.

That of course made them targets for those wanting to push people around.

Most of those types had quickly learnt not to try it with them courtesy of Andy's fist to their face, but two days after one of said tries Thompson Fergus dragged him into the gym showers.

"You got me suspended you little creep!"

Andy responded by tearing half the school down.

Lauren took care of the other half.

* * *

They couldn't stay amidst the destruction.

Instead they walked out, and kept walking.

No one looked at them twice.

Their mom called, ten minutes into the walk, sobbing and hysterical. "Lauren- Lauren, please tell me you're safe, tell me you're both safe, tell me where you are."

Neither of them spoke.

"This is not the time for this! Answer me!"

Lauren stared at the phone as though trying to work out what it was and why it was making noise.

"Lauren!"

She handed Andy the phone. He smiled. "It's okay. We're better now."

* * *

They kept walking.

Their mom called again forty minutes later, telling them Sentinal Services was there and why hadn't they told her – and then the Sentinal Services agent took the phone.

"Lauren, Andy, you need to-"

Andy ended the call.

* * *

Ten minutes later their dad called.

"Lauren, Andy. Where are you?"

"Taking a walk," Andy said.

"Taking- Where?"

Andy shrugged, not that his dad could see that on the other end of the phone.

"Andy, this is important! You destroyed your school! Caitlyn's been arrested! Sentinal Services are looking for you! Andy, are you even listening to me?"

Andy, who had let the hand holding the phone fall to his side, was not.

"Andy!"

"Yes?"

"Where are you?"

Andy looked at Lauren, shrugged, and told him.

"Right. Here's what we're going to do."

Andy scowled. Lauren scowled with him. Who did he think he was to give them orders?

* * *

They stopped at a small café a long way from their school and their home, and bought hot chocolate and a meal.

Bringing death and destruction to the world was surprisingly draining.

Their dad arrived ten minutes later.

"What were you thinking?" he demanded.

Lauren only looked at him. Andy drank his hot chocolate. It was very good.

"People have died."

"Well that is kinda what we do," Andy replied.

It was not the correct answer.

"Don't you care at all?"

Lauren licked her fingers. That was a no.

Their dad had this whole plan to meet up with representatives from the Mutant Underground tomorrow and plan from there.

"You could have told me you know," their dad said.

"We couldn't," Andy replied.

Lauren said nothing.

* * *

They spent the night in some rundown motel. Lauren showered first, followed by Andy, and then they sat and watched a news broadcast on their destruction of the school.

Lauren smiled.

They'd done a good job.


	3. Chapter Two

**Author's Note**

I do not own The Gifted.

* * *

Sentinel Services had found their car in the morning. Lauren pulled their drone from the sky and Andy ripped it apart.

"You shouldn't have done that. They'll come to investigate the loss," their dad told them.

Andy kicked at the metal scraps that were all that remained of the drone.

* * *

They stole a van to get rid of theirs and left to meet this Mutant Underground contact of their dad's. He took them with him to the meeting in some seedy little bar. Lauren suspected he didn't trust them enough to leave them on their own.

The Underground man introduced himself as 'Eclipse.' Andy thought it made him sound like a member of the X-men.

Eclipse arranged for them to meet again in the afternoon when he provide them with supplies and help get them over the border to Mexico in exchange for their dad helping him free his girlfriend.

* * *

The meeting point was an industrial warehouse area, all large, metal barns and towering containers.

"Once you're at the Headquarters, we'll get these two on the next van out," Eclipse told them. "There are safehouses they can stay until you and your wife can join them."

Their dad agreed to it, having no other choice, though he was clearly uncomfortable at the idea of leaving them.

Lauren smiled. She wondered if he was worried about leaving them on their own.

A moment later the Sentinel Services arrived in a blaze of cars and shouting. Lauren threw a shield across the tunnel and Andy flung the gathered agents away. Eclipse yelled for them to stop and their dad grabbed at Andy's hand.

A moment later a door on their left flew open and a large, muscular man shouted for them. There was a smaller figure behind him, one Lauren and Andy couldn't quite make out.

"Go!" Eclipse shouted, grabbing Lauren's shoulders and shoving her towards the door. She stumbled through. Their dad grabbed Andy and pulled him after her.

The other person was a woman, small and purple haired.

Their eyes met.

Something primal shifted.

Recognition.

It was like something clicking in their brains, missing pieces clicking into place.

"Move it!" shouted the male newcomer. Metallic clanging echoed down the tunnel.

"Sentinels!" snapped Eclipse.

"Clarice can you portal us out of here?"

"Of course."

She stopped and held her hands out. A glowing purple hole began to form slowly in front of them. Too slowly.

Lauren and Andy looked at each other.

She wasn't strong yet. She was weak.

Why?

"Come on?"

There was a room on the other side of the hole, grey and concrete.

"Is that safe?" their dad asked.

"If it's not then I'm in trouble!" shouted the woman. The man that had come with her jumped through the hole and shouted for them to follow.

At the end of the tunnel an army of robotic spiders was lurking.

Their dad grabbed Lauren and shoved her through before grabbing Andy's arms and pulling him through the space hole. Eclipse and the pink woman followed, and then the space hole snapped closed.

* * *

There was silence for a long moment, and then the new man began shouted at Eclipse for taking such a risk without informing him. Lauren and Andy walked over to the pink woman. "It's good to meet you sister."

She paled and took a step back. "I- don't know what you mean."

Lauren frowned. Were they wrong? No, because they felt it, the connection the sense of sameness. She was like them.

They looked at her again. Why was she so weak?

* * *

Their dad did not send them over the border to Mexico. He wanted to rescue their mom, and, they suspected, didn't want to send them ahead alone.

He didn't trust them.

So they stayed there with the Underground.

* * *

They tried to speak with The Other, but she seemed to fear them.

"You must feel it," Andy exploded after the second week and the umpteenth rebuff.

"You know we're right sister."

"I'm not like you.I don't want to hurt anyone."

They smiled nasty smiles.

"We don't want to hurt anyone."

"But death comes for all things."

"I won't be like you," she replied.

Lauren frowned. "But you must feel it."

"The pull."

"They're coming."

"You can't fight it."

"It's in your nature."

"I don't feel anything," she insisted.

"You feel it," they said.


	4. Chapter Three

I do not own The Gifted.

* * *

The Unerground's computer and analysis woman, Sage, found them the details for when and where they would be transporting their mom and Eclipse's girlfriend. A plan was designed for Lauren and Andy to stop the van and a few other members of the Underground to retrieve the two women.

The plan did not go according to paper.

That was their fault.

Instead of the wheel, Andy tore the front of the van apart.

It started a war of bullets, which the Underground didn't seem to be fighting back from.

They frowned.

What was going on?

Lauren pointed. There. A mutant with glowing eyes, supressing the mutant abilities.

Andy sent him flying before Lauren sent a spinning blade his way, followed by another, then another, then one at the Sentinel Services agents, one at the van, and one at the members of the Underground.

Andy raised an eyebrow and matched her by caving in several of the nearby cars and pelting all those gathered with glass and metal.

The back of the van burst open and a green haired woman leapt out, her hands glowing.

The rain of bullets didn't touch her.

The two of them turned away and meandered from the building.

* * *

Their dad found an intact van and loaded the bloody and maimed members of the Underground into it. Lauren and Andy lounged on the back seats. Eclipse alternated between kissing the green haired woman and screaming at them. "What were you thinking? You could have got us all killed!"

Andy smiled. Lauren gazed out the window.

His screams fell on deaf ears.

* * *

Polaris, the green haired woman, started training for the mutants. It seemed unnecessary for Lauren and Andy, who had gained an inate and instinctive knowledge of their powers the moment they manifested.

Still, they were fun to use.

Their mom was against it. She said she wouldn't have her children training to fight a war and kill people.

Ironic, given their purpose.

They kept training.

* * *

They stayed with the Underground. The Other continued to deny them, deny her purpose.

It didn't frustrate them.

It angered them.

Who did she think she was to deny purpose? This was what she was designed for!

But she refused to listen, and pretended she didn't feel the ghost of a tug deep in her chest.

She knew it as well as they knew it.

They were coming.

* * *

Their dad went to visit his dad regarding the mutant working for Sentinel Services, and the Underground brought in another group of mutants seeking sanctuary.

She was amongst them.

Their eyes met and another piece slotted into place.

Lauren smiled.

"It's good to see you sister," said Andy.

"Good to meet you."

First impressions of this one were more positive.

* * *

She was pretty, with pale skin, blonde hair, and hungry, desiring blue eyes. Chloe Tan stared into those eyes for too long an started gnashing on her lips until her mouth was filled with pinkish foam.

She was also strangely incomplete. Like parts of her were missing.

They spoke to her again afterwards. Her name was Esme Cuckoo – or so she said.

"Do you feel it?" Andy asked.

"I feel it," she replied, but soon trailed off with thoughts and ramblings about her sisters.

Lauren looked at Andy. Andy looked at her.

They suspected they had just found out why she felt so incomplete.

* * *

They had to get the sisters back.

It wasn't a connection like theirs – they were one spirit and being across two bodies – but more like parts of her had become parts of them and parts of their humanity had leaked into her.

_Tainted_, they thought.

Was there to be no one else worthy of serving?

That left them with the only option of getting the sisters back.

The Underground had a plan.

None of them wanted the plan to include them this time. Eclipse said they were too much of a loose canon.

A loose canon with destructive mutant powers.

The plan failed.

Dreamer, Clarice, Eclipse, and Thunderbird were all captured.

Lauren and Andy cursed.

Now not only did they need to get the sisters, but they needed to get the Other back too.

Oh, they could have left her, she'd have been dragged in or replaced eventually, but they didn't have that time and this was easiest.

This time, with Polaris in charge, they were allowed in on the plan. She saw their potential even if she didn't like them.

"I don't care what you have to do," she told them. "Kill whoever you want, destroy what you like. Just make sure I get Marcos back alive."

They smiled.

"That's more like it," said Lauren.


	5. Chapter Four

**Author's Note**

I do not own the Gifted.

* * *

Before they could set up, Sage told them something had changed and all the mutants were being removed from Trask's lab.

That made things easier.

Lauren diced open the gates (and the guards), and Andy tore open the front of the van. Esme walked behind them, her eyes glowing hungrily. Two women stepped down from the remains of the van to join them. It completed Esme, their eyes glowing to match hers.

That made two of them.

They looked at The Other. Lauren held her hand out. The Other only stared at her. Eclipse and Thunderbird climbed from the ruined van behind her. Eclipse had a black eye and Thunderbird's lip was bleeding.

"Time to go boys and girls," said Esme and her sisters brightly.

The Other began to tear open a portal.

Lauren resisted the urge to wince.

Andy didn't.

She should be stronger than this.

"Let's go!" Thunderbird shouted.

Lauren and Andy watched them flee through the portal, which closed behind them.

The Other would come when she was needed.

She would have no choice.

* * *

Esme and her sisters worked for something called the Hellfire Club.

Apparently it had already had that name before they started working for it.

Ah the irony.

They put them up in an expensive looking hotel with four poster beds and gold gilding.

"What do we do about Clarice?" asked Esme.

"She'll come," Andy replied, standing on the hotel balcony.

They would submit to who and what they were. It was their nature.

"Good." Esme leant against the doorframe and watched the city below with those hungry eyes.

* * *

The purpose of the Hellfire Club was also a little ironic. They were mutant terrorists, but at their core they wanted to gain a homeland of their own, a safe haven for mutants.

That was what Reeva Page spent her time preaching about anyway.

Lauren and Andy laughed in her face.

How had Esme resisted the urge to do that?

Probably her sisters' influence, they decided.

Reeva Page was not happy, nor impressed with their reaction.

None of it would mean anything when They finally rose.

It felt like a waiting game now. They could feel the ghostly pull, stronger these days, but not what it was or where it was coming from. Sometimes it felt like it was coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

"Perhaps they don't know who they are yet," suggested Esme, but something about that felt wrong.

"Perhaps they're not born yet," said Lauren.

That felt better.

"Born?" repeated Esme.

"What, were you expecting them to literally rise from the flames?" asked Andy dryly.

She frowned. "Was that an actual joke from one of you?"

Andy smiled.

* * *

Esme and her sisters went back to the Underground on Reeva Page's orders to try recruiting. Lauren and Andy gave her orders to _recruit_ one person in particular. She would come, in The End, but it wouldn't hurt.

In the meantime they trained. The Heads of the Club weren't overly comfortable with their recruitment. They said they were too young, too violent, too much like their Great Grandparents.

It only they knew.

* * *

Reeva Page was forbidden by the Club to use them in the strike against Trask.

Lauren and Andy were irritated.

They'd wanted some fun.

* * *

Waiting wasn't very interesting.

In fact, it wasn't interesting at all.

So instead they volunteered to go with the cuckoos to visit the Underground.

The Club wasn't happy about that either, but they only obeyed one person, and They hadn't arrived yet.

Besides, it turned out there was fun to be had. Sentinel Services attacked the Headquarters. Their parents set about arranging an escape plan.

Lauren and Andy had other ideas.

They set about tearing into the Sentinel Services agents, making short work of them.

The Other didn't know what she was missing.

They hoped The Fourth was having fun.

Once everyone was out they destroyed the building in a blitz of golden light.

Beind helpful could be fun.

Sometimes.

* * *

They retreated to the Way Station, a regrouping point for the Underground, and waited for them to, well, regroup.

It took a little while.

They spoke to their dad a little in that time. He suspected, they believed, even if he didn't know their true nature.

"What are you?" he asked in the hour before Esme came to collect them. As if they needed collecting. They went where they liked when they liked. Not humans nor walls nor time itself could hold them back.

"You're not my children."

"Of course we are," replied Andy, affronted.

"You're demons," their dad snapped back.

Lauren smiled. "No. We're a manifestation of the human fear."

"The human fear of what?"

Their smiles widened.

"You know," said Lauren.

"A part of you's always known," said Andy.

"That tiny piece of you you don't want to listen to."

"It tells you to fear us."

"It tells you why."

"It tells you what we are."

"It always has, hasn't it?"

"Mom, she treats us like little kids, but you, you've always known."

"One spirit across two bodies."

"That was unexpected."

"And- Clarice. She's one of the others? And the Frost sisters?"

"Only Esme."

"But shouldn't there be four of you?"

They grinned.

"Now he gets it."

"The Fourth hasn't come yet."

"I see."

"Why are you here? Why now?"

"We've been summoned."

"Summoned by who? How?"

They shrugged. "It's not our place to question the Summoning. They'll come."


	6. Chapter Five

**Author's Note**

I do not own The Gifted.

* * *

Lorna, Sage, and a few other members of the Underground left with them for the Hellfire Club.

The Other did not.

Esme held her hand out, but still she didn't come.

Sophie and Phoebe told her to join them, but still she didn't come.

Thunderbird held her tight against his chest. "Leave her alone!"

"She'll come," Lauren said.

"I won't!" the Other spat. "I won't be like you!"

"You will."

"You'll have no choice."

Or-

Would she?

She'd done a good job at fighting her nature so far.

But no.

When they called, she would come.

Or lose her crown like one once before her did.

* * *

The Leaders of the Club continued to cause issues over the recruitment.

Reeva Page killed them.

"We will be the start of a new age," she said.

She wasn't wrong.

Only her assumptions in what that age would be like.

* * *

The ghostly pull continued to grow.

They waited a little more impatiently these days.

And the Fourth still hadn't joined them.

"They should be here. Something's gone wrong," Andy said.

"Patience brother."

They could be anywhere.

They would come when the time was right.

Meanwhile, the Other still hadn't joined them either.

She would have to, but the part of them that was still human was worrying about it now.

* * *

Lorna's unborn baby grew too, and so did her powers. If she had been the Other they wouldn't have argued, and indeed sometimes it did feel like she had a pull. Her powers were incredibly unstable by the time she went into labour. Reeva had set up a delivery in an old factory.

The sky overhead turned black. Thunder boomed and lightning cracked.

They felt it as she was born.

An explosion of… arrival, _there_ness, and power.

So much power.

The world must have felt her birth they thought.

Or at least, one person had. A portal tore open to the left of the decrepit doorway. The Other climbed through.

"Not one word," she snarled, dusting off her slacks and snapping the portal closed.

Fade attempted to shoot her.

Lauren flung up a shield and Andy sent him flying backwards, smashing the gun into shining shards.

Being shot would just be… inconvenient more than anything else.

"What is she doing here?"

Reeva stepped out and Bulk arrived, drawn by the noise. Lauren touched the Other's arm. "She's here for our Master's arrival."

"She's not part of this," Reeva snapped.

They looked at the Other. She shrugged. "I'm more part of this than you are."

They smiled.

This was much better.

* * *

Lorna wasn't pleased to see her either. Clarice assured her she was alone and had no plans to whisk the baby away to Eclipse. In fact, she wanted nothing except for the baby to grow up healthy and powerful.

The Frosts confirmed it.

With clear reluctance, Clarice was allowed to stay.

She was already there after all.

* * *

Lorna had named the child Dawn.

Fitting, they thought as they looked at the little bundle in her arms.

For some, she would be the last Dawn they ever saw.

Of course, she would also be the last anything they ever saw, but that was a fact that was neither here nor there in terms of relevance.

She grew by the day.

Quite literally.

By the time she was three days old, she was twice as big as the day she was born, and still growing.

Her presence made (almost) everything make sense.

There was still something – someone – missing.

"Something must have gone wrong," Esme said one night. Dawn was asleep in Lorna's room, but they could still feel her power.

"Else they'd be here. Even she made it." She cocked a thumb at Clarice, who scowled.

"It's a phase."

"It's not the time to go through a phase! We're here for a purpose!"

Clarice tossed her purple hair. "I'll go through a phase if and when I want to go through a phase."

"She's here now. They'll come."

* * *

In the morning they found Lorna feeding a noticeably bigger Dawn in the sitting room while the TV played a report on a breakout at a psychiatric detention centre. Reeva was stood in front of the screen, glaring at it like it had wronged her and her ancestors.

"Something wrong?" Andy asked.

"No," she snapped back.

The TV droned on about the escaped mutants being dangerous and unsafe to approach. Lauren watched it with mild interest.

"You two should be training. Clarice as well." She said the name like it disgusted her. She still wasn't happy with Clarice's presence, but tolerated it for their sakes and the Frosts' influence.

Lauren left the news report and joined him in the training room. Once they were done there, they cleaned up and went out for food.

It was as they were returning they were hit by a missile.

All the nearby windows shattered.

Lauren staggered, windmissing her arms. Andy caught her elbow. The brown haired girl now apparently wrapped around her waist gazed up at them.

"Andy, why do I have a person attached to me?"

"I finally found you!"

Lauren pried her away. "It's about time."

The world shifted as the last piece slotted into place.

Andy pulled her to her feet. "We'll introduce you."

* * *

Esme laughed when she saw her. "Finally!"

"Who's this?" Sage asked, staring at her.

"Oh, this is-" Andy paused. They knew her true name; they hadn't asked for her human one.

"Rebecca Hoover," she provided.

They nodded.

"And she's here why?"

"She's one of us now."

* * *

Reeva was… actually weirdly happy.

Less so when she discovered her allegiances to the group forming that did not include her.


	7. Chapter Six

**Author's Note**

I do not own The Gifted.

* * *

Dawn continued to grow. She was the size of a one year old at ten days old, and toddling at a month. By two months she was developed enough to talk.

"It must be her mutation," Sage reasoned to Lorna.

"Just tell me she's healthy."

"If having a temperature of negative thirty and one hundred and fifty at the same time counts as healthy, then yes."

Lorna groaned.

Dawn continued to grow.

Reeva wasn't pleased most of the Inner Circle seemed to prefer the literal baby to her.

* * *

She was a beautiful child with her dark eyes and hair.

Her horsemen would follow her to The End of the Earth.

Which was, of course, exactly what they did.

* * *

Reeva was the first to fall.

She didn't like the fact so many of them followed Dawn and not her, and eventually she told them so.

She dropped dead.

No, really, she did.

It was Dawn's first time flexing her powers.

* * *

Fade was next.

Bulk fled.

Lorna stayed though, determined to stay with her daughter despite her being, well, her.

* * *

The Underground was the next, not that there was much of them left by now. Lorna had begged for Eclipse's life, but he wasted it by trying to shoot Dawn the following day.

Dawn had said she wouldn't kill him.

Lauren and Andy had made no such promises.

* * *

Dawn stood on the balcony and gazed out at the hateful, angry world. They waited on her next words.

"It's time."


	8. Epilogue

**Author's Note**

I do not own The Gifted.

* * *

First the crops started to die. Clarice could portal them around the world, her powers growing stronger daily now she wasn't fighting them, and her presence in any field corrupted the plants and nearby animals.

The Frosts infilitrated key businesses and drove them power hungry and mad, forcing their collapse, one by one by one.

The lack of food led to feuds between countries, which Dawn's presence boosted Rebecca's influence to aggravate until they turned into war.

Lauren and Andy went anywhere they were needed. Which was a lot of places, to be honest. Death, after all, must come to everything.

Mostly, however, they stayed at Dawn's side. The others travelled far and wide, but they remained with her.

It was funny, they considered, but in the end a lot of people had got what they wanted. Humans and mutants living in harmony. Granted it was because they were more afraid of the bigger monsters, but still.

* * *

Momentarily, the stormclouds split and light shone through.

A baby wailed.

Hope.


End file.
